Posted on 03/15/2017 5:17:59 AM PDT by SJackson
The new president is gearing up to make the same mistake as his predecessor.
US President Donald Trump is losing his focus. If he doesn’t get it back soon, he will fail to make America great again or safe again in the Middle East.
After holding out for a month, last week Trump indicated he is adopting his predecessors’ obsession with empowering the PLO.
. This is a strategic error.
There are many actors and conflicts in the Middle East that challenge and threaten US national interests and US national security. Iran’s rise as a nuclear power and regional hegemon; the war in Syria; Turkey’s abandonment of the West; and Russia’s regional power play all pose major threats to US power, security and interests. The Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hamas and other Sunni jihadist movements all threaten the US, Europe and the US’s Sunni allies in the region in a manner that is strategically significant to America.
None of these issues, none of these actors and none of these threats are in any way related to or caused by the PLO and its interminable, European-supported hybrid terror and political war against Israel. None of these pressing concerns will be advanced by a US embrace of the PLO or a renewed obsession with empowering the PLO and its mafia-terrorist bosses.
To the contrary, all of these pressing concerns will be sidelined – and so made more pressing and dangerous – by a US reengagement with the PLO .
And yet, over the past week, Trump has indicated that the PLO is now his focus.
Last Friday, Trump spoke on the telephone with Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is head of the PLO and the unelected dictator of the corrupt, terrorism-sponsoring, PLO -controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.
According to media reports, Trump told Abbas – whose legal term in office ended eight years ago – that he views him as a legitimate leader. According to the official White House report of the conversation, Trump also reportedly told Abbas that he supports reaching a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Such a deal, to the extent it is ever reached, involves expanding PLO control over Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem at Israel’s expense.
Trump also invited Abbas for an official visit to Washington. And the day after they spoke, the Trump administration moved $250 million in US taxpayer dollars to Abbas’s police state where for the past 25 years, Abbas and his cronies have enriched themselves while feeding a steady diet of antisemitic, anti-American jihadist bile to their impoverished subjects.
To build up his credibility with the PLO , Trump put his electoral pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem on ice. The real estate mogul ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny Jews the right to their property and their legal right to use state lands in Judea and Samaria.
And swift on the heels of that conversation with Abbas, Trump’s chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt was dispatched to Jerusalem to begin empowering the PLO at Israel’s expense.
According to media reports, Greenblatt intended to use his meeting Monday with Netanyahu to reject Netanyahu’s commitment to build a new Israeli town in Samaria. Greenblatt was also reportedly intending to dictate the parameters for yet another round of negotiations with the PLO.
After meeting with Netanyahu, Greenblatt continued on to Ramallah to embrace Abbas.
Also during his stay, Greenblatt is scheduled to meet with IDF generals who are responsible for giving money and providing services to the PLO.
And Greenblatt doesn’t have the Palestinians to himself.
Following Trump’s conversation with Abbas, plans were suddenly afloat for Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump to visit Israel and spend an afternoon with Abbas in Ramallah.
If things develop as reported, then Trump is serious about embracing the PLO and intends to have his top advisers devote themselves to Abbas and his henchmen. If that is the case, then Trump is setting himself, his advisers, his daughter and the US up to fail and be humiliated.
The PLO is the Siren that drowns US administrations. It is to the PLO that America’s top envoys have eagerly flown, gotten hooked on the attention of the demented, anti-Israel press corps, and forgotten their purpose: to advance US national interests.
If Trump is serious about repeating this practice, then rather than repair the massive damage done to the US and the Middle East by his two predecessors, the 45th president will repeat their mistakes. Like them, he will leave office in a blaze of failure.
To understand why this is the case, three things must be clear.
First, the PLO will never make peace with Israel. There will never be a Palestinian state.
There will never be a peace or a Palestinian state because the PLO wants neither. This is the lesson of the past 25 years. Both Abbas and his predecessor Arafat rejected peace and statehood multiple times and opted instead to expand their terrorist and political war against Israel.
Why did they do that? Because they are interested in two things: personal enrichment – which they achieve by stealing donor funds and emptying the pockets of their own people; and weakening, with the goal of destroying Israel – which they achieve through their hybrid war of terrorism and political warfare.
The second thing that needs to be clear is that the Palestinians are irrelevant to the rest of the problems – the real problems that impact US interests – in the region. If anything, the Palestinians are pawns on the larger chessboard. America’s enemies use them to distract the Americans from the larger realities so that the US will not pay attention to the real game.
Iran will not be appeased or defeated if Trump empowers the PLO in its war against Israel and continues feeding PLO leaders’ insatiable appetite for other people’s money.
The Sunni jihadists will not beat their swords into plowshares if the US coerces Israel to cough up land to the PLO . To the contrary, they will be emboldened.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not move his forces out of Syria or stop giving nuclear technologies to Iran if the US turns the screws on Israel. Putin will come to the conclusion that Trump is either weak or stupid to damage Israel, the US’s most serious ally.
And of course, Israel will not be better off if Trump decides to push it back onto the peace train which has caused it nothing but harm for the past quarter century.
Trump’s election opened up the possibility, for the first time in decades, that the US would end its destructive obsession with the PLO. For three months, Israelis have been free for the first time to discuss seriously the possibilities of applying Israeli law to all or parts of Judea and Samaria. And a massive majority of Israelis support doing just that.
On the Palestinian side as well, Trump’s election empowered the people who have been living under the jackboot of Abbas and his cronies to think about the possibility of living at peace with Israel in a post-PLO era. Polling results indicate that they too are eager to move beyond the Palestinian statehood chimera.
But now, it appears that Trump has been convinced to embrace the PLO obsession. The same entrenched bureaucrats at the State Department and the same foreign policy establishment in Washington that brought the US nothing but failure in the Middle East for a generation appear to have captivated Trump’s foreign policy. They have convinced him it is better to devote his top advisers to repeating the mistakes of his predecessors than to devote his energies and theirs to fixing the mess that Obama and George W. Bush left him with. They have gotten him to believe that it is better to empower the PLO than develop coherent strategies and plans for dealing with the problems of the region that actually endanger US interests and imperil the security and safety of the American people
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Predecessors, all the way back to the wisdom of Bush the Elder sidelining relatively moderate palestinians in favor of Yasser Arafat as their representative in the Madrid/Oslo process.
WHY must every president in modern memory feel compelled to involve himself and by extension the United States in the matter of Israel and the Palestinians?
This is Israel's local issue, just as illegals from Mexico is our own issue that doesn't merit meddling from any other country.
So why do we meddle with Israel's?
I have all the faith in the world that Israel can manage its affairs, including this one. They are perhaps THE best prepared and competent nation in the world at addressing this kind off issue. American involvement is not needed.
So what is our skin in the game supposed to be? What's our angle? Did we ever have one? And why would Trump repeat this pattern of failure?
Trump knows the hatred against Israel taught to "Palestinian" children in school and in their homes.
What he is doing is forcing the Palis into the open. He will demand that they stop the hate and recognize Israel.
Because the Mossad and CIA control the puppets in Wash DC. or kill them. They are the Deep States jackboots.
His top advisor on this, Jared, is an Orthodox Jew—but unfortunately a Manhattan liberal.
His top advisor on this, Jared, is an Orthodox Jew—but unfortunately a Manhattan liberal.
One would think, given your ability to state the problem, that you would be smart enough to look a little deeper instead of concluding “a pattern of failure” is an answer.
The PLO needs to be totally destroyed, the Palestinians need to be distributed among other Islamic paradises, and the “Palestinian territory” needs to be returned to its legitimate owner - Israel.
What you said....
Good question. There are regional implications which could impact US security, but since the end of the cold war not overly significant. With the exception of GWB and Reagan, both of whom also interfered, I think post Nixon Presidents thought they were helping the persecuted from a situation was largely Israel's fault.
I don't think so, he certainly hasn't done that yet. There are suggestions that he and Bibi have worked out parameters for a separation, and that they may be presented on a take it or leave it basis. Behind the scenes. A deal struck before Presidential level involvement. If true, you're very close.
Won’t happen, Israel won’t expel the West Bank population, the US wouldn’t support it, and no one would take them.
Trump is a devout supporter of Israel.
He knows the evil coming from the Palis.
He is negotiating. He is working toward his goal.
Bibi trusts Trump. Bibi knows that Trump knows the Truth.
Simple.
Replace the characters with the actors.
WHY must every president in modern memory feel compelled to involve himself and by extension the Christian United States in the matter of Jewish Israel and the Muslim Palestinians?
So what is our skin in the game supposed to be? What's our angle? Did we ever have one? And why would Trump repeat this pattern of failure?
Look backward to see the future. Who is: Jacob? Ismael? Esau?
And the $64,000 question: Why is Esau aligned with Ismael against Jacob?
And the bonus question: Where is all this prophesied?
The US was dragged into this as one of the results of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Since 1989, it’s mostly out of habit. For war mongers like McCain, it’s just defense industry profits.
Miracles DO happen. :)
There are some key differences. Trump is adopting a policy more along the lines of GWB. GWB basically set several conditions for US involvement and if these conditions were not met he would stay out. And the conditions were not met, and so we spent those years with benign neglect. If the Palestinians wont meet some minimum standards of neighborliness then they stand accused of bad faith and no negotiations will occur.
GWB’s plan was partly in response to Clinton’s spectacular failure. Clinton more than any President (though kudos to Carter for Camp David) pushed an I/P deal hard. Arafat was the single most frequent foreign visitor to the White House! When Clinton’s full court press blew up with Arafat’s rejection of the “last, best offer” he warned Bush it was a dead end trap.
So GWB said to the Palestinians ‘if you want our support, grow up. Stop inciting violence. Start cracking down on terror etc”
Trump has taken this same approach. Trump told Abbas directly to grow up. If you want a state, then act like a state. Enforce laws against terror. Detain terrorists and interrogate them for information about the people and groups who provided material support. Trump insisted that all incitement to violence be taken off the PA run Radio and TV channels. Trump told Abbas to burn all those ridiculous school books that preach hatred of Jews and denies the existence of Israel. He told the PA to stop paying money to the families of terrorists, and to change the names of streets and town squares named for their “martyrs”
Most of all, which is an entirely new policy, Trump told Abbas to cut ties with Gaza. He told Abbas to stop sending tax money and foreign donations to Gaza. Trump is calling Abbas bluff. Trump is making Abbas put up or shut up. He will not allow the PA to cry wildly about being victims without recognizing their own culpability in the conflict, and he will not allow the PA to pretend to want to be an independent state so he can browbeat Israel in the international political arena where he raises billions in donations. Put up or shut up Abbas. Do you want a state or not? If yes then act like a state.
These demands suggest that Trump has found a consensus among a large group of Arab leaders including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi, and the GCC states. Some of these kingdoms are even financing Abbas’ political rivals including those who are in exile in Europe.
Trump appears to have a new strategy which is to pit Palestinians in the WB against those in Gaza, and to isolate Abbas in negotiations. If Abbas goes along with it, Trump will have stripped Abbas of the political pressure from Hamas, and also taken away one of his crybaby cards in which Palestinian leaders say they cannot make a deal because they cannot get Hamas in Gaza to go along with it. So Trump is trying to corner Abbas into a position where he has to accept a deal or face enormous backlash. If Abbas fails to move on these demands or walks away from negotiations then there is a path to oust him with younger leaders. If he does go along with it, he will find a great deal of financial support and political support from around the world. Trump is trying to make it so Abbas can walk away a winner.
That said I am still skeptical. Abbas and the PLO/PA reject peace with Israel for a whole host of political, ethnic and religious reasons. So far, for decades, they have benefited by not declaring independence because they still get the money from foreign donors, still get Israel to remit tax dollars and provide utlities and trade and more. They get many of the benefits and none of the resposibilities. The PLO/PA is really not well equipped to be an independent state. They have the trappings of a state like security forces, police, courts, and a parliament but it is mostly ineffective. Trump is trying to force their hand. No more two faces, no more bad faith bargaining, no more sob stories that ignore their own culpability.
Trump is going to promise them a lot to go through with it. but it is in the form of a long rope. The PA/Abbas will either use the rope to pull themselves up into final deal, or they will use it hand the PA - and the PA can be removed from Ramallah just as easily as the PLO was installed under Clinton and Oslo. If Abbas fails, the PA may be dissolved and the situation revert back to the way it was before 1992.
I think Trump is onto something here. But aside from the demands Trump has laid down which are demands I have read in several sources, the rest of this is all my conjecture.
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